Aging

Framing can help address negative attitudes toward aging. FrameWorks' research offers powerful ways to shift thinking about aging and older people.

People are living longer, healthier lives. But ageism stops us from adapting our society to that reality.

Some ways of countering ageism don’t work the way we expect. “Super senior” stories featuring tremendous late-life accomplishments do more harm than good. Comparing ageism to racism or sexism also backfires. It leads people to think that ageism isn’t as serious as these other forms of discrimination.

Explore the narratives that help us push for age-friendly policy and confront ageism.

Featured Work

Reframing Aging Through Images

Just like words, images play an important role in the implicit messages we send about older people.

Toolkit

Gaining Momentum

The way Americans currently think about aging creates obstacles to productive practices and policies. How can the field of aging help build a better understanding of aging, ageism, and what it...

Report

Public Thinking About Care Work: Encouraging Trends, Critical Challenges

Has the salience of care and the respect for frontline workers seen during the pandemic stayed high or dwindled? What we find is both encouraging and a call to action.

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Article

The Future of Care

Four years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic shined a light on care work and the many ways that care infrastructure—or the lack thereof—plays an important role in all of our lives. From greater...

Report

Communicating about Disability in Australia

To change culture and build a more inclusive society, we must first understand the deeply held assumptions and beliefs that underpin public attitudes about people with disability in Australia.

External article

Neither Soldiers Nor Angels: Putting Care Workers into Context

The Frameworks Institute is busy reframing care work to push for better conditions, protections, and pay.

Report

Public Thinking About Care Work: Encouraging Trends, Critical Challenges

Has the salience of care and the respect for frontline workers seen during the pandemic stayed high or dwindled? What we find is both encouraging and a call to action.

Frame Testing Recommendations

How to Share the NASEM Report, The National Imperative to Improve Nursing Home Quality, with Public Audiences

Evidence-based framing guidance for talking about nursing home care

Report

Communicating About Nursing Home Care: Findings and Emerging Recommendations

Finding a New Nursing Home Narrative

Report

Public Thinking About Care Work in a Time of Social Upheaval: Findings from Year One of the Culture Change Project

To what extent is this unprecedented pandemic shifting thinking about care work? The FrameWorks Institute is exploring this question as part of our empirical study on culture change during a time...

External article

Reframing Aging Through Images: Recommendations from Research

Just like words, images play an important role in the implicit messages we send about older people.

External article

Reframing Aging Through Images: Research Methods Supplement

This supplement provides detailed information on the research informing FrameWorks and AARP's strategic brief on reframing aging through images.

External article

Reframing Aging Through Images: Fact Sheet

Images shape attitudes about aging.

External article

Advocating for Age in an Age of Uncertainty: How the COVID-19 crisis is amplifying ageism, and how advocates can push back

It’s clear we need to change the way society thinks and talks about aging, and there’s great opportunity to do it now. In 2014, the FrameWorks Institute launched a study using theory and...

External article

Biased language paints an unfair picture of “old people” today

Narrow representations of older people don’t just misinform us. They bias us.